The arrival of Steph Miligan (Georgia Jay) to Emmerdale last week was a shock for her father, Caleb (William Ash) – but he didn’t have much time to process it as when she arrived he was pinned against a wall by a fork lift truck driven by an irate Jai Sharma (Chris Bisson).
In Monday (November 18)’s episode Caleb had a bit more time to talk to his daughter when he invited her to his house for breakfast. It wasn’t long before Ruby Fox-Miligan (Beth Cordingly) arrived home unexpectedly early from her visit to see their son Nicky (Lewis Cope) – and she was stunned to see Steph in her kitchen.
It wasn’t long before Ruby was asking Caleb for some time alone with her daughter as it became clear there was a lot of tension between mother and daughter.
Caleb took himself off to the Woolpack to see his sister, Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter), and as he talked to her about Steph’s arrival we started to find out more about what happened to the family in the past to cause such a huge rift with Steph.
First of all, Chas was shocked to hear that her brother even had a daughter as it was clear that Steph had never been mentioned before.
He said that Steph had never forgiven her parents for sending her to boarding school. This had happened after she caught Caleb with another woman. He asked her not to say anything to her mum, which was a huge secret for a young girl to keep and when Ruby eventually found out she was furious with her.
Steph started behaving badly as a reaction, and in scenes between Steph and Ruby we learned that this had culminated in Steph stealing a car. Her parents then enrolled her in this boarding school, not telling her about it until they drove her there and left her. Steph had had a miserable time and was bullied.
Caleb told Chas that he regretted not fighting Steph’s corner, but at the time he’d felt in an impossible position because of Ruby’s reaction to the affair he’d been having. He couldn’t go against Ruby and ‘Steph had to suffer.’
In poignant scenes he described how Steph had been a ‘daddy’s girl’ when she was little and they’d had a very close relationship.
‘She was collateral damage,’ he told his sister. ‘She was my little mate, she was like my shadow, and I let her down.’
At that point he broke down and cried, telling Chas that he never talked about her because ‘It hurts so much. It’s easier to pretend she didn’t exist.’
He also said that was why it had been so important to him to be part of the Dingles. ‘It was like compensation.’
He insisted that he couldn’t lose Steph again and Chas urged him to do whatever he needed to do to make sure that didn’t happen.
When he returned home, Steph had gone – and things hadn’t gone well at all between her and Ruby with Ruby slapping her across the face. He pledged to Ruby that they would get their little girl back. ‘She’s the best of both of us.’
Meanwhile their little girl was heading to the B&B with village bad boy Ross Barton (Mike Parr) – not a move that is likely to make a reconciliation with her parents any easier.
